


What's In A Label?

by Churbooseanon, red_as_ever



Series: The State Game [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: AIs as Human and Humans as AI, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4088254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_as_ever/pseuds/red_as_ever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newly arrived on the Mother of Invention as future agents of Project Freelancer, Eta finds herself bristling at how she knows she and her brother are going to be categorized. As a single unit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Label?

**Author's Note:**

> For our AI/Freelancer swap AU, currently tentatively called The State Game.
> 
> Warning: Eta is female in this AU. If you don't like that, turn back now.

From the second they step into the presence of the other ‘survivors’ of the Project Freelancer preliminary recruitment phase, the woman now known as Agent Eta knows what’s going to happen. Not that it’s surprising, it happens every time new people meet them, but it doesn’t bother her any less. It doesn’t matter that Iota is a good deal taller than her. It doesn’t matter that her hair falls in long, loose curls down her back, or that his hair is short and so massively curly that he used to get teased as ‘curly-q’ back in elementary school. It’s not the differences that others will read, but the similarities. In their eyes, in their facial structures, in that exact shade of their skin, and in the way they look at each other when someone says something stupid. 

The second they are brought into the presence of the other to-be members of their team, the die is cast. 

Twins, some of the looks around them seem to say, an accusation hurled at them as if Eta only exists in the context of Iota and Iota only exists in the context of Eta. 

The way they look at her makes Eta want to scream in frustration. How many new units is she supposed to pound the skulls in of before people stop looking at them and thinking that? 

Probably doesn’t help that Iota has sensed her frustration, and just like that there is a gentle and at the small of her back that somehow restrains her and her temper, despite how impossible that really is. It shouldn’t be a thing that she could be restrained with no effort, no pressure at all, but there it is, his hand, his support, his promise that no matter what happens he’ll be there. 

In a way it almost annoys Eta more. The display being made here, in front of these people, only reinforces what they must think. These are twins. These are special people. They share a kind of connection we can’t understand, will never understand. Do you think they shared a bed growing up? Do you think they know all of each others’ secrets? Do you think blah blah blah. 

Eta shakes her head, sets her curls to bouncing as she gets it all out of her head. 

The thing is? The answer is yes, always yes, forever yes. But not because of some strange thing that no one else can understand. Hell, she’s seen it before. There’s no magic, no mystical powers about being a twin. There never is, not in her experience. If Iota can read the whole of her move with a single sound she makes, well that’s just because they’ve known each other their entire lives. Rarely been separated. Always forced together as a pair. And if she works well with him in a fight it’s because when you have that long with only a single constant sparring partner, you know what they do. What they like. How they fight. How can that not make your style with them better? It’s not a miracle, it’s not even biology, it’s just experience that makes them so close. 

As if he senses that bristley line of thought, Iota’s hand melts away from the small of her back, and Eta has to look away at the unspoken reprimand. Part of her wants to go on, but what’s the point? These people don’t get it. Will never get it. Will never understand them or see them the way Eta desperately wishes they could and would. Which means keeping up what is expected of them, because hell, what else do they have? 

“Hey, I’m Eta,” she provides, thrusting her hand out toward one of the other people there, the man with dark hair and dark eyes and who seems to exude that special power and slight disdain of an officer. It’s fun to watch him prickle. Let him see what the fuck his rank amounts to here, where rank has been thrown out the window for the sake of their ‘team.’ “This quiet hulk here is my brother Iota.”

“Twins?” the man asks as he shakes her hand, and then Iota’s when it’s offered. 

“I suppose so, seeing as he’s only an hour older than me,” Eta laughs, and the man’s expression relaxes. 

Hell, so do those around them. Guess she was giving off more of her frustration than she intended. Good thing her brother called her on it. But now that she knows she puts on her most charming, stunning smile, and just lets their amusement settle in. 

“Looks like we’re going to be working together. Let’s make the best of it,” Eta offers, and the man with some strange capital A stitched into the shoulder of his uniform much like Eta and Iota have weirder symbols stitched into theirs, smiles at her. 

“Let’s.”

And with time, she’ll find a way to break these people of the way they think about her and Iota. Maybe then… 

Maybe then they can truly relax.


End file.
